Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Mount Auburn as a Community Resource | Page 13

People and Happenings
has enabled us to consolidate the recycling operations and
minimize turf vehicle traffic and noise by storing finished
compost and topsoil in this area. A more efficient recycling
yard for day-to-day use has been created on parcel A which
the turf vehicles access several times a day.
In 2001 Mount Auburn purchased the former Shick
property (parcel D) immediately adjacent to the “pit property”
(parcel C) and has already done extensive work to clean up
the property. Having determined that the house does not
fit into Mount Auburn’s long range plans, we are now dis-
cussing its future with the Town of Watertown.
We have committed to setting back all of our fences
along parcels B, C and D, to allow for the area in front to
be landscaped with low-growing plants that will visually
improve the site for both pedestrians and drivers. Alyson
Karakouzian, one of our long-standing Grove Street neigh-
bors in Watertown says, “My family has always enjoyed
the beautiful grounds and the peaceful serenity that can
be found within the Cemetery. We have felt a bit like the
back-door, however, so we are very excited to see the visions
of the Cemetery being brought to our small neighborhood.
Grove Street has long been an industrial, heavily travelled
road and it is great to envision the improvements to the
sidewalks, fencing and all-around quality of our neighborhood.”
Mount Auburn is eager to see these streetscape improvements
eventually connect to the new, attractive, state-of-the-art
greenhouses that will be visible from the road welcoming
visitors to the new Horticulture Center at Mount Auburn.
There will be no question that one has entered a botanic
garden as well as a cemetery with the prominence of these
greenhouses. They won’t still be standing “a thousand years
from today,” as our founder Dr. Jacob Bigelow said in the
mid-19th century about the Egyptian Gatehouse entrance
from Mt. Auburn Street, but woody plants propagated in
these greenhouses will be standing 200 years from now, much
like a few of the majestic oaks standing today that predate
the founding of the Cemetery in 1831. The beauty of the
grounds has served as a source of solace to the bereaved for
decades and there is every indication that the natural world
of Mount Auburn will continue to serve them and our
Watertown neighbors.
Mount Auburn Cemetery and the Grove Street Corridor
The diagram at left, an enlarged inset from the map of the Cemetery
(upper left), shows the western edge of Mount Auburn along Grove
Street, Watertown, and also the parcels of property across Grove Street
(B-D) now owned by the Cemetery. The Meadow Extension (A) is
the area within the existing Cemetery that is being planned for future
redevelopment. New greenhouses and fences set back from the sidewalk
along Mount Auburn’s Grove Street property will enhance the visual
appearance and safety for Watertown neighbors, commuters and Mount
Auburn visitors.
Mount Auburn’s Meadow Extension
architect rated # 1 in US
William Rawn Associates of Boston, the
architectural firm in the process of develop-
ing the design for Mount Auburn’s Meadow
Extension project for new greenhouses and
Horticultural Center, a Family Center, new
landscaped burial space and a recycling yard,
has been recently named the Number One
Bill Rawn
architectural firm in the country by the industry
publication ARCHITECT in its May 2009 issue. The firm
was also named #4 in the Top 10 in “sustainable” practices
and LEED projects and number of LEED certified architects
on staff.
Rawn Associates’ principal, Bill Rawn, grew up in Pasa-
dena, CA, graduated from Yale, and although he had always
shown an interest in building things, he went to Harvard
Law School (J.D 1969) and became an attorney. Still
“passionately” interested in design, he ultimately decided
that he wanted to go to architecture school. He received
a Master’s in Architecture from MIT in 1979 and never
looked back to a career in law. He founded his firm in 1983
and since has received nine national AIA Honor Awards,
including one in 2008 for the interior of the acclaimed center
for dance and theater at Williams College.
A working visit from Smith College
Botanic Gardens
A group of nine interns
and their leader from The
Smith College Botanic
Gardens visited Mount
Auburn on June 30 for
a tour of the Cemetery’s
horticultural collections and
various landscapes. In lieu
of a monetary contribution
to the Friends for the tour, the group contributed their
time by spending several hours working at Mount Auburn’s
experimental garden and nursery, weeding, transplanting,
labeling, staking, and doing other important summer
garden tasks.
Harvard Art Museums Junior Fellows
visit
A group of the Harvard Art Museums Junior Fellows visited
Mount Auburn on June 10 for a tour highlighting traditional
and contemporary sculpture in the landscape and the rare
1841 stained glass window in Bigelow Chapel which was
restored in 2006. The tour and the reception following were
hosted by Mount Auburn staff.
Fall 2009 | 11